The Spell of Flanders / An Outline of the History, Legends and Art of Belgium's Famous Northern Provinces

by Edward Neville Vose

The interior is worthy of the exterior. On the first floor a large hall, called the Salle du Peuple—Hall of the People—extends from one side of the building to the other. This contains a fine stone fireplace surmounted by a splendidly carved Gothic mantelpiece with statues of Ste. Walburge in the centre and Justice and Power on either side. Below are the arms of Austria, Flanders, and of Audenaerde. This masterpiece was carved by Paul Van der Schelden. The walls on each side of the fireplace are decorated with modern mural paintings depicting Liederick de Buck, the first Forester of Flanders, Dierick of Alsace, Baldwin of Constantinople, and Charles the Fifth. Between the windows overlooking the Grande Place are the Arms of Castile and Aragon, while at the ends of each of the great beams that support the ceiling are carved the arms of the various kingdoms and principalities belonging to Charles V.

Already we perceive that the shadow of the great Emperor rests heavily on this little city of Audenaerde, and as we proceed further in our explorations the more dominating and omnipresent does his personality become. Even the very arms of the city bear a mute evidence to his generosity and sense of humour. It is related that on a certain occasion the Emperor and his stately train approached the city without being perceived by the sentinel stationed in the tower of this very Hotel de Ville to announce his arrival. On reaching the gates, therefore, the Imperial cortège found no one to welcome the great monarch. The Burgomaster and the members of the Council, who should have been there in their robes of state, were conspicuous by their absence. Had this happened to his ancestor Charles the Bold, whose fiery temper brooked no discourtesy, even when unintended, it might well have gone hard with the unfortunate officials. As it was, the Emperor overlooked the slight, but not long afterwards he maliciously inserted a pair of spectacles in the arms of the city, remarking that in future they would thus be able to see more clearly the approach of their sovereign.

WOODEN DOORWAY, CARVED BY VAN DER SCHELDEN, HOTEL DE VILLE, AUDENAERDE.

Adjoining the Salle du Peuple is a smaller chamber, the Salle des Échevins, or the Council Chamber of the ancient commune. Here there is another stone fireplace slightly inferior to the one in the larger hall, but resembling it in general design. The statues here represent the Virgin Mary in the centre, with Justice and Hope on either side. The chief masterpiece in this room, however, is the wooden doorway carved by Van der Schelden, who was instructed by the burghers to make it as beautiful as possible. How faithfully the artist performed his task the result shows. Around its top stand wooden cupids surmounting a richly carved entablature containing the arms of Charles V in the centre with those of Flanders and of Audenaerde on either side. The first is supported by two griffins, the second by two lions and the last by two savages. The panels of the door itself and of the sidewalls forming the complete portal are richly carved, each design being different from all the others. For this bit of wood-carving the frugal burghers paid the sum of one thousand, eighteen livres parisis, or nine hundred and twenty-three francs—something over $175—and the artist furnished the wood!

Formerly the walls of this room were decorated with tapestries of Audenaerde, but at the time of Louis XIV these were all removed and taken to Paris. Most of the tapestries in the town overlooked by le Grande Monarque were subsequently taken away by Napoleon, so that the Hotel de Ville of the city that gave these treasures to the world, and that should possess the finest collection of them, has been stripped completely bare. In their stead the Council Chamber at present contains a collection of paintings of no special artistic merit but of great historical interest. There is, of course, a portrait of Charles V, wearing the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece. A portrait of Louis XIV on horseback and bearing a marshal’s baton, by Philippe de Champaigne, forms a poor substitute for the tapestries filched by His Majesty. This collection also comprises several portraits of personages famous in later Flemish history. Of these the most noteworthy is that of Margaret of Parma, which hangs close to that of her father, the Emperor.

Just across the Grande Place from the Hotel de Ville stands the Tower of Baldwin, undoubtedly the oldest structure in the city, and erected by Baldwin V, a Count of Flanders who died in 1067, making it date from the Norman Conquest. The concierge of the Hotel de Ville informed us that this little tower, which adjoins another ancient edifice now used as a brewery, was the birthplace of Margaret, but this does not appear to be altogether certain. Some authorities state that the honour belongs to a little two-story house with a high, steep-sloping roof that also faces the Place. If the walls of these old houses had the ears that proverbially belong to all walls, and were still further provided with lips to whisper the secrets they overheard, they could no doubt settle this question; and at the same time throw some additional light upon a famous bit of mediæval romance and scandal.

Of all the natives of the ancient town of Audenaerde the most famous was Margaret, afterwards the Duchess of Parma, and for many years Regent of the Low Countries, over which she ruled with an almost imperial sway. Her father was the great Emperor, Charles V, who dallied here for several weeks as guest of the Countess de Lalaing, wife of the Governor of Audenaerde, while his soldiers were besieging Tournai in the year 1521. The attraction that kept him so far from his army was a pretty Flemish maiden named Jehanne or Jeanne Van der Gheynst. According to the none too trustworthy Strada, this young lady was a member of the Flemish nobility, but according to the city archives it appears that she belonged to a family of humble tapestry workers residing at Nukerke, a suburb of Audenaerde. At all events, her pretty face attracted the attention of the youthful Emperor—whether at a ball, as Strada says, or while she was serving as maid of the Countess de Lalaing, as many writers assume, or perhaps at a village Kermesse which Charles might well have attended incognito. After the little Margaret was born the mother received an annual income of twenty-four livres parisis from the Emperor. In 1525 she married the Maître de Chambre extraordinaire of the Counts of Brabant, and died in 1541. Charles took his little daughter and had her brought up as a princess. In 1537, when she was only fifteen years old, she was married by the Emperor to Alexander, the Duke of Urbin, a cruel and dissolute Italian prince who, however, died the same year. The following year she was married to Octavio Farnese, a grandson of Pope Pius III, who was then only fourteen. She was herself strongly opposed to this marriage, but the Emperor was obdurate and she finally yielded. Her son, Alexander Farnese, was the famous Duke of Parma who became the foremost military leader on the Spanish side during the sanguinary war between Philip II and the Netherlands. On the death of her father, Margaret was made Regent of the Low Countries by her half-brother Philip II. She arrived at Ghent, July 25th, 1559, and on August 7th the King presented her to the States General, saying that he had chosen her as his representative because she was so close to him by birth and “because of the singular affection she has always borne toward the Low Countries where she was born and raised and of which she knew all the languages.” She retired from the Regency in 1567, but was called back once more in 1580 at the personal request of the King. As her son Alexander was then at the zenith of his power, and opposed to her resuming the regency, she finally declined the honour which was reluctantly given to him. She died in 1586 at the age of sixty-six.

It was her fortune, or rather misfortune, to rule over the Netherlands at a period when the seething forces of religious unrest and protest were becoming too violent to be restrained. Had Philip II, her half-brother, been less bigoted, less cruel, and less blind to the best interests of the country and of his own dynasty, it is possible that the great popularity of the Duchess—who was sincerely loved by the majority of her subjects and respected by all—might have enabled the Government to restrain the rising passions of the people. If, instead of a policy of savage repression, the King of Spain had authorised Margaret to pursue a policy of moderation and conciliation, the fearful history of the next eighty years—the blackest page in human history—might never have been written. Unfortunately, moderation and conciliation were as foreign to the nature of that sombre monarch as to Torquemada himself, and fanaticism fought fanaticism with a fury that was as devoid of intelligence as it was of mercy.